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If you're looking for Victorian Costumes... then you've found the right place!

When you think of Victorian costumes... are you seeing satin and silks with pleats, bustles, and beautiful hats? You can find both women and men's costumes from this era.

This period in history spans a rather long time time, therefore offers quite a few styles to choose from.

This is a time when the very rich, the aristocracy, wore beautiful clothing as a sign of their place in society.

This was at a time when everyone else, the peasants, wore the simplest of styles and fabrics.

Check out the great selection and prices on Victorian Costumes below.

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Some people now look back on the Victorian era with wistful nostalgia. Historians would say that this is as much a distortion of the real history as the stereotypes emphasizing Victorian repression and prudery.

Also notable is a contemporary counter-cultural trend called steampunk. Those who dress steampunk often wear Victorian-style clothing that has been "tweaked" in edgy ways: tattered, distorted, melded with Gothic fashion, Punk, and Rivethead styles. Another example of Victorian fashion being incorporated into a contemporary style is the Gothic Lolita culture.

Victorian fashion comprises the various fashions and trends in British culture that emerged and grew in prominence throughout the Victorian era and the reign of Victoria, a period which would last from June 1837 to January 1901.

Covering nearly two thirds of the 19th century, the 63 year reign would see numerous changes in fashion. These changes would include, but not be limited to, changes in clothing, architecture, literature, and the decorative and visual arts.

In 1837, cloth was manufactured in the mill towns of northern England, Scotland, and Ireland. But clothing was generally custom-made by seamstresses, milliners, tailors, hatters, glovers, corsetiers, and many other specialized tradespeople, who served a local clientele in small shops.

Families who could not afford to patronize specialists, made their own clothing, or bought and modified used clothing.

By 1907, clothing was increasingly factory-made and sold in large, fixed price department stores. Custom sewing and home sewing were still significant, but on the decline.

New machinery and materials changed clothing in many ways.

The introduction of the lock-stitch sewing machine in mid-century simplified both home and boutique dressmaking, and enabled a fashion for lavish application of trim that would have been prohibitively time-consuming if done by hand. Lace machinery made lace at a fraction of the cost of the old, laborious methods.

New materials from far-flung British colonies gave rise to new types of clothing (such as rubber making gumboots and mackintoshes possible). Chemists developed new, cheap, bright dyes that displaced the old animal or vegetable dyes.

Many a Victorian woman could emphasize modesty by wearing freshly laundered detachable white collars and false undersleeves called engageantes. Both were often made of delicate whitework and gave an air of refinement and daintiness.

With the arrival of the  1860's... four significant technologies and cultural factors were to seriously affect fashion of the future. Firstly the sewing machine had been invented, secondly clothes would in future become couture design led, thirdly synthetic dyes would make available intense

colurs. And... latly in 1860 the crinoline domed skirt silhouette had a flattened front and began to show a dramatic leaning toward the garment back.

In 1866 the new Princess gown also changed the line of fashionable dress. The Princess gown was cut in one piece and consisted of a number of joined panels fitted and gored from shoulder to hem that gave the figure shape through seaming.

The Gabriel Princess gown with its small neat white collar was primarily made in gray silk and followed the fuller skirt lines of the era. This was the dress style often used to depict the constrained buttoned up repressed governess character found in many of the Jane Eyre in films.

Later Princess styles were slimmer and much more

form fitting. Sleeves in day dresses were often of a banana shape.

After 1868 the overskirt really caught on in England and contrasting underskirts and gown linings were all revealed as the over top skirt was divided or turned back.

Other top skirts were called aprons and they were also draped making the wearer look like a piece of elaborate upholstery. Rounder waistlines were fashionable and waistlines even began to rise very slightly.

By the time of mid 1870's soft polonaise bustle styles were becoming so extreme that the soft fullness began to drop down the back of the garment and form itself into a tiered, draped and frilled train. Trains were very heavily ornamented with frills, pleats, ruffles, braids and fringing.

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Its in this period that the sewing machine instead of simplifying sewing, just became a tool to add more ostentation.

Now... suddenly sometime around the early 1880's a new jutting out shelf like style of bustle appeared. The shelf style bustle had been shown in Paris around 1880, but as a fashion took off later outside of Paris.

Late in the Victorian era women embraced the sharper tailored jacket fashion which gave them a different posture with a more confident air reflecting the ideals of early female emancipation. Other military and more tailor made styles of jacket were also popular. Some dresses also had a more severe air about them.

Ok... that's enough history for now about Victorian dress.  Let's get into the fun on Victorian Costumes!

Do not fret... there lots of fun to be had in Victorian Costumes.  Victorian Costumes can depict both the young and old elite of society... man and women. After all these costumes are for having fun and pretending, so why not go all the way.

Choose the "hour glass" dress with bustles and pleats that shape the costume to fall gracefully to the floor.

Add a feathered hat and evening gloves to your assemble portraying the socialite of the Victorian age.

A married woman or older woman wore the heavier fabrics with the crispy silks and satins or velvets. They always wore a hat so you must remember to get a hat. The bigger the dress in width the bigger the hat needs to be.

In the mid 19th century, there was a change in attitudes about the popular holiday resorts. The seaside was not enjoyed as a place of social status but when the resorts were deemed healthy for enjoyment and pleasure the socialites rode off to the new resorts. They had to have new clothing, which resulted in seaside-clothing trends.

Take a look at the Ships Captain costume that comes with a double breasted jacket, gold trim, an official pair of pants with gold strips. You should be able to find sizes from a small to extra large size.

The Captain needs a beautiful Lady at his side wearing a Full length skirt with a jacket buttoning on one side, blue or gold buttons from the top of the jacket down the skirt. Finish off your "out to sea" style with a wide hat with plumes of "down feathers" and shading you from shoulder to shoulder.

Low cut shoulder lines exposed the "bertha" style, trimmed with inches of lace flounce with bands of pleats.

You could be accompanied by a man with a tailored cut suite representing the elite of his class.

The cut of the coat is what changed for the middle class men. They represented masculinity and class status during the Victorian era.

A mans costume could be a double breasted jacket, with a lined vest, pants and a placket detail. You may want to dress in a handsome morning coat with pin stripes pants Add a velveteen vest and your are ready to assist your lady as a proper gentleman.

Chose from so many styles spreading across an era. The lines in clothing began to slim down and become more natural fitting.

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You can choose from the late Victorian era when dresses revealed more and fit the actual shape of the body.

Mens fashions influenced by a aesthetic movemet of dress, bringing in the belted jacket, knickers, and robes.

You can choose from a large varitey of Victorian costumes which displays and era's mannerisms, hairstyles, and class status all through the clothing they wore.

Well... I hope this gives you some good halloween costume ideas!

Wishing you an awesome Halloween holiday experience.

Fred Gagnon

Tags: Jane Eyre, Victorian Dress, rubber making gumboots, Victorian Costumes, Fred Gagnon Victorian